Against Ranked Teams 2017 - Week 8

[SWC75]

This year I will be again charting how teams have done “against ranked teams”, which is something that always comes up at the end of the year when the arguments over who should be in the 4 team national championship playoff takes place. As usual, this is not meant to end those arguments, just to give those making them something to look at in forming their opinions.

I’m going to do it a bit differently this year. The old procedure was that I would first grant teams playing ranked teams a certain number of points based on who they are playing. If you played the #1 team, (I use the AP- writer’s poll for continuity), you get 25 points. If you are playing the #2 team, you get 24 points, etc. down to getting 1 point for playing the #25 team. I call these “schedule points”. Here’s a chart to make it simple:
1-25, 2-24, 3-23, 4-22, 5-21, 6-20, 7-19, 8-18, 9-17, 10-16, 11-15, 12-14, 13-13, 14-12, 15-11, 16-10, 17-9, 18-8, 19-7, 20-6, 21-5, 22-4, 23-3, 24-2, 25-1.
(Of course you can always just subtract the ranking from 26. That will work every time.)

Then I look at the point differential in the actual game. If you defeated the ranked team, you add the number of points you won by to the schedule points. If you lost to that team, you subtract the margin you lost by from the schedule points. (I call these ‘game’ points.) The difference between this year and last year if that I didn’t count any deficit: if you got to zero, you got zero. This year I’m going to try to record negative points, too, so a team can get full ‘credit’ for a really bad performance.

WEEK 8

Notre Dame beat #11 Southern California 49-14 = +50 points
Penn State beat #19 Michigan 42-13 = +36 points
Texas lost to #10 Oklahoma State 10-13 = +13 points
Kansas State lost to #9 Oklahoma 35-42 = +10 points
Syracuse lost to #8 Miami 19-27 = +10 points
Baylor lost to #23 West Virginia 36-38 = +1 point
Indiana lost to #18 Michigan State 9-17 = 0 points
Houston lost to #25 Memphis 38-42 = -3 points
Maryland lost to #5 Wisconsin 13-38 = -4 points
Navy lost to #20 Central Florida 21-31 = -4 points
Tulane lost to #16 South Florida 28-34 = -4 points
Michigan lost to #2 Penn State 13-42 = -5 points
Tennessee lost to #1 Alabama 7-45 = -13 points
Mississippi lost to #24 Louisiana State 24-40 = -14 points
Colorado lost to #15 Washington State 0-28 = -17 points
Kansas lost to #4 Texas Christian 0-43 = -22 points
Southern California lost to #13 Notre Dame 14-49 = -22 points
Arkansas lost to #21 Auburn 20-52 = -27 points
North Carolina lost to #14 Virginia Tech 7-59 = -40 points

Comments: We are slowly climbing this ranking. Unfortunately the declining fortunes of Florida State and Louisville make it unlikely we will add to our total. Notre Dame’s performance against USC was the second most impressive against a ranked team this year, topped only by California’s 37-3 demolition of then #8 Washington State last week (+52 points)

TOP 25

Clemson +87 points
Notre Dame +60 points
California +52 points
Auburn +49 points
North Carolina State +43 points

Texas Christian +43 points
Texas +41 points
Alabama +40 points
Georgia +40 points
Oklahoma +39 points

Penn State +36 points
Arizona State +31 points
Iowa State +30 points
Syracuse +29 points
Louisiana State +26 points

Washington State +24 points
Michigan State +23 points
West Virginia +22 points
Virginia Tech +21 points
Iowa +20 points

Michigan +20 points
Florida State +17 points
Texas A&M +17 points
Boise State +16 points
Southern California +15 points

East Carolina last with -97 points

 

[kcsu]

Thank you. I truly appreciate the time and effort you put into these post.